This dairy-free and egg-free twist on creme brulee is a perfect introduction to free-from cooking – ingredients to suit almost anyone, using flavours and ideas from across the world. Chocolate and cherry are famously found in Germany's Black Forest gateau, while torching sugar on custard is a tradition in France and Spain. Cinnamon from Africa, sugar from the West Indies (or Suffolk) and soya from Asia complete a surprisingly global combination.

1 Rinse and pit the cherries. Chop them roughly and place in a small saucepan with 1 tbsp water and the cinnamon on a medium heat. Simmer for 5 minutes.

2 Distribute the cherries across four heatproof ramekins and set aside.

3 To make the custard, pour the soya cream into another saucepan and add the sugar. Place over a medium‑high heat.

4 In a cup, mix the cornflour and 2 tbsp of water until you have a smooth mixture. Tip it into the saucepan, stirring all the time.

5 Keep stirring and allow the mix to boil. It will thicken until it is roughly the consistency of yoghurt. At this point, take it off the heat, break the chocolate into regular-sized chunks and add them to the pan. Keep stirring until the chocolate has melted and completely mixed in.

6 Pour the custard into the ramekins. Smooth the top of each dessert with the back of a teaspoon. Place them in the fridge for at least an hour.

7 To serve, sprinkle a tsp of sugar over the top of each dessert. Blast briefly under the grill or with a cook's blowtorch.

What to watch out for

I specify dairy-free dark chocolate, because some dark chocolate brands contain milk fat. However, even if the ingredients are dairy-free, there may still be trace contamination. Plamil sells dairy-free and gluten-free dark chocolate (plamilfoods.co.uk). If you need a nut-free chocolate, try Kinnerton (kinnerton.com). They have a dividing wall in their factory that keeps nuts in their place: there's even segregated warehousing, segregated product trays, segregated mould washing – even the engineering tools are only used on one side of the wall or the other.